I have been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, planetary surface processes, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals. I am a Trustee of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation and consult on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants. I also consult for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water. For over 20 years I have been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others, as well as professional societies including the America Nuclear Society, the American Chemical Society and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Like We've Been Saying -- Radiation Is Not A Big Deal

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has finally admitted that we can't use the LNT hypothesis to predict cancer from low doses of radiation. Now the Japanese people can start eating their own food again and stop being as afraid. Source: United Nations

A very big report came out last month with very little fanfare. It concluded what we in nuclear science have been saying for decades – radiation doses less than about 10 rem (0.1 Sv) are no big deal. The linear no-threshold dose hypothesis (LNT) does not apply to doses less than 10 rem (0.1 Sv), which is the region encompassing background levels around the world, and is the region of most importance to nuclear energy, most medical procedures and most areas affected by accidents like Fukushima.

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) (UNSCEAR 2012) submitted the report that, among other things, states that uncertainties at low doses are such that UNSCEAR “does not recommend multiplying low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or below natural background levels.” (UNDOC/V1255385)

You know, like everyone’s been doing since Chernobyl. Like everyone’s still doing with Fukushima.

Finally, the world may come to its senses and not waste time on the things that aren’t hurting us and spend time on the things that are. And on the people that are in real need. Like the infrastructure and economic destruction wrought by the tsunami, like cleaning up the actual hot spots around Fukushima, like caring for the tens of thousands of Japanese living in fear of radiation levels so low that the fear itself is the only thing that is hurting them, like seriously preparing to restart their nuclear fleet and listening to the IAEA and the U.S. when we suggest improvements.

The advice on radiation in this report will clarify what can, and cannot, be said about low dose radiation health effects on individuals and large populations. Background doses going from 250 mrem (2.5 mSv) to 350 mrem (3.5 mSv) will not raise cancer rates or have any discernable effects on public health. Likewise, background doses going from 250 mrem (2.5 mSv) to 100 mrem (1 mSv) will not decrease cancer rates or effect any other public health issue.

Note – although most discussions are for acute doses (all at once) the same amount as a chronic dose (metered out over a longer time period like a year) is even less effecting. So 10 rem (0.1 Sv) per year, either as acute or chronic, has no observable effect, while 10 rem per month might.

UNSCEAR also found no observable health effects from last year’s nuclear accident in Fukushima. No effects.

The Japanese people can start eating their own food again, and moving back into areas only lightly contaminated with radiation levels that are similar to background in many areas of the world like Colorado and Brazil.

The huge waste of money that is passing for clean-up now by just moving around dirt and leaves (NYTimes) can be focused on clean-up of real contamination near Fukushima using modern technologies. The economic and psychological harm wrought by the wrong-headed adoption of linear no-threshold dose effects for doses less than 0.1 Sv (10 rem) has been extremely harmful to the already stressed population of Japan, and to continue it would be criminal.

To recap LNT, the Linear No-Threshold Dose hypothesis is a supposition that all radiation is deadly and there is no dose below which harmful effects will not occur. Double the dose, double the cancers. First put forward after WWII by Hermann Muller, and adopted by the world body, including UNSCEAR, its primary use was as a Cold War bargaining chip to force cessation of nuclear weapons testing. The fear of radiation that took over the worldview was a side-effect (Did Muller Lie?).

Background Radiation Differences on Annual Cancer Mortality Rates/100,000 for each U.S. State over a 17-Year Period. There is no correlation with radiation dose. States with significantly higher doses, greater than 2.7 mSv/year (270 mrem/year) like Colorado, have lower cancer rates than States with much lower average doses like Georgia, and vice versa. (from Frigerio and Stowe, 1976 with recent radon data)

Of course, doubling the dose doesn’t double the cancers below 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr). It has no effect at all. The millions of nuclear workers that have been monitored closely for 50 years have no higher cancer mortality than the general population but have had several to ten times the average dose. People living in New Mexico and Wyoming have twice the annual dose as those in Los Angeles, but have lower cancer rates. These cannot occur if LNT were true, because LNT states this could not occur.

There are no observable effects in any population group around the planet that suggest LNT is true below 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr) even in areas of the Middle East, Brazil and France where natural background doses exceed 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr).

Although rarely discussed, LNT does not take into account the organisms immune system, biological recovery time between doses or other relevant mechanisms that operate at low doses on an actual organism versus cells in a petri dish.

UNSCEAR is an independent body of international experts that has met regularly since 1955 and helped establish radiation as the best understood, though weakest, carcinogenic agent in the world through its studies of atomic bomb survivors, the effects of the Chernobyl accident, industrial radiological accidents, and medical radiation treatment.

Many of us have been at them for years to stop procrastinating and prevaricating on something so important that the inaction itself is harmful. This report is a welcome change. The report, approved by the United Nations General Assembly, will now serve to guide all countries of the world in setting their own national radiation safety policies.

This is incredibly important to Japan where national guideline changes have been horribly over-reactive in response to Fukushima, especially for food, using LNT in a way it should not be used.

Accepted global limits on radioactivity levels in foods is 1000 Bq/kg (1,200 Bq/kg in the U.S.). Dominated by cesium-137 and Sr-90, these levels were set by organizations like the IAEA and UNSCEAR after decades of study. Because of public radiation fears broadcast in the press after the Fukushima accident, Japan cut the limit in half hoping it would have a calming influence. But the level of fear remained high, so Tokyo lowered the limits to one-tenth of the international standards.

This was supposed to induce calm? Telling the public that radiation is even more deadly than they thought? That their food is toxic? Were they nuts?

This has had the unintended consequence of making people even more afraid of what they are eating, moving safe foods into the scary category and limiting food exports, causing even further economic and social damage.

Suddenly, all sorts of normally safe foods are now banned. Wild mushrooms from Aomori Prefecture are now banned because they have cesium levels of about 120 Bq/kg. This cesium has nothing to do with Fukushima, it’s the same type as is in everyone’s food around the world, and it wouldn’t have rated a second look before the accident (Japan’s Contamination Limits Way Too Low).

The Japanese people should not be punished for nothing. But these new results and the UNSCEAR reports demonstrate that they are being punished. There was no reason to lower the rad limits on food, especially after the short-lived nuclides have long decayed away. One of the incorrect assumptions was that people in Japan would be eating only contaminated food, which is quite wrong. The international limits were set for very good reasons, lowering them makes no sense except to further hurt farmers and consumers in Japan.

UNSCEAR’s chair Wolfgang Weiss stated that no radiation health effects had been observed in Japan among the public, workers or children in the area of the damaged nuclear power plants, in keeping with studies already published by the World Health Organization and Tokyo University. Doses of radiation received by people near the damaged power plant were so low that no discernible health effect could be expected.

The Japanese government, for all its failures, did the right thing in evacuating Fukushima Prefecture quickly and by preventing contaminated food and water from being consumed. This was in stark contrast to Chernobyl where the Soviets intentionally kept the public in the dark.

Ingestion of the short-lived isotope iodine-131, with its well-known risk of thyroid cancer when absorbed in the thyroid glands of children and young people, was the only major radiation-related health effect of the Chernobyl accident on the public. And the Soviets could have prevented that by acting quickly and openly. Of course, the Soviets didn’t much care about the public.

This will not happen in Japan. Iodine-131, with a half-life of only 8 days, decayed away in a few months following the accident and no one was found to have ingested any significant amount.

According to the reports, six Fukushima workers received total doses of over 0.25 Sv (25 rem) during their time fighting the emergency, while 170 workers received doses between 0.1 and 0.25 Sv (10 to 25 rem). None have shown ill effects and most likely never will. Radiation played no role in the coincidental deaths of six Fukushima workers in the time since the accident, who died from accidents, e.g., being crushed by debris or being swept out to sea.

Yes, there are health effects of radiation above 0.1 Sv (10 rem) that statistically increase up to 1 Sv (100 rem) but even in this higher range it’s hard to see them without a big enough population. The only radiation events on this scale, where large populations received 0.1 Sv (10 rem) to 1 Sv (100 rem) have been the atomic bomb blasts from World War II.

The effects of radiation only start to become clear at high acute absorbed doses of over 1 Sv (100 rem), and even then it is necessary to eliminate other potential causes before radiation can be unequivocally said to be the cause, advised UNSCEAR.

What this means for nuclear waste disposal is even more dramatic, but more on that later!

In the end, if we don’t reorient ourselves on what is true about radiation and not on the fear, we will fail the citizens of Japan, Belarus and the Ukraine, and we will continue to spend time and money on the wrong things. I’m sure the anti-nuke ideologues and conspiracy theorists will not accept these U.N. reports, but then…they don’t like the United Nations anyway.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Well, for once, I have to concede you found a better and more detailed description of that process than I have been able to locate… that makes good sense (unlike your last try). However, you merely made the case that C’s do not bioaccumulate HEAVILY in comparison to other toxins, not that they DO NOT bioaccumulate. The clue to this at the end of the first paragraph and the beginning of the second…. it says “Contaminants with high Kd and high B/2 bioaccumulate heavily, those with low Kd and low B/2 do not (bioaccumulate HEAVILY).

The other sentence has the qualifier… B/2 is how long it takes the organism to rid itself of that contaminant in an environment relatively free of that contaminant. As you say, if that fish moves to an area free of c’s it will rid itself of them in time. However, the studies I am seeing on the dispersal of radionuclides in the Pacific do not bode well for those fish being able to move into an environment free of radiocesium. From what I have read, that is precisely why the consumption of meat from sheep in the British highlands is still prohibited… it depends on the soil type and ph. In lowland areas with clay soils and higher alkalinity, the cesium bonds to the clay and is not taken up by the grass. But in the highlands the soil acidity allows it to be readily absorbed by the grass and then the sheep also absorb it. This is no doubt the reason you noted that hunters who eat wild game have the highest concentration of radiocesium in their bodies. In that case you are correct insofar as moving the sheep out of the highlands apparently greatly diminishes their bio uptake of c’s…and presumably their would be no bioaccumulation. But the same would not hold true if they stayed in the highlands, so you see there is indeed a very good reason for those regulations.

I suppose we need to include another hair splitting distinction of terms, and use bio concentration for part of what I was including as bio-accumulation. This is the process in which radionuclides become increasingly concentrated in different species as you move up the food chain. Tuna are quite high up the marine food chain, and so will receive larger amounts of radionuclides in their food sources.

oregonstu: It doesn’t help your case to keep citing material that has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community. And no, it has not been peer reviewed. Here’s the case made against that publication by one of the more distinguished members of the N Y Acad of Sciences:

Subject: Publication by NYAS of Annals Vol. 1181 on the Chernobyl Meltdown of 1986 Attention: The Board of Governors The President’s Council

I write this as a concerned member of the NYAS, requesting action to end a stalled situation detrimental to NYAS’s reputation and well-being.

The facts are these:

Background

In 2007, the NYAS undertook to support the translation of a large number of scientific papers in Russian and other Slavic languages, on the effects of the 1986 breakdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Soviet Ukrainia.

In 2009, the English translation of this material was published as Volume 1181 of the NYAS Annals. Greenpeace claims that “based on now available medical data, 985,000 people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster.” The authority for this statement is “the book recently published by the New York Academy of Sciences.” That death-toll is not supportable by scientific evidence.

The Chernobyl incident has been thoroughly studied by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the World Health Organization, the Red Cross, the International Atomic Energy Agency, et al., with update reports every few years since. These bodies all conclude that there has been no significant increase in the mortality rate or the incidence of cancer, birth defects, abnormalities and other health effects in the population exposed to fallout from Chernobyl, with two possible exceptions: A number of treatable thyroid nodules among children was attributed to the reactor, but since the nodule incidence (cases per thousand) was actually comparable to several other low-iodine countries without any radioactivity release, that attribution is being reexamined. A 2005 review of the data by an informal group call the Chernobyl Forum, included a suggestion that, based on the LNT premise (that even a single gamma ray could cause a cancer), 4000 additional deaths might ultimately occur. Since there is no indication that these deaths are likely, and since “prediction” of deaths by adding up of thousands of small individual radiation doses has been repeatedly forbidden as scientifically unsound, the suggested 4000 deaths has not been widely accepted.

The NYAS book concedes that its extreme conclusions cannot be supported by the methods of science in a scientific report; the report itself is a direct repudiation of the scientific method. For example, starting with page 2, it states:

“Some experts believe that any conclusions about radiation-based disease require a correlation between an illness and the received dose of radioactivity. We believe this is an impossibility. (p.2); Using criteria demanded by the IAEA, the WHO, and the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation resulted in marked underestimates of the fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. (p.32 ); …it is not necessary to calculate standard errors…today’s ‘scientific protocols’ with for example, ‘confidence intervals’ and ‘case control’ are not perfect…It is correct and justified for the whole of society…to use the enormous database collected by thousands of experts.”

The Preface of the report states that the writing was undertaken “with the initiative of Greenpeace International.” The Acknowledgement section of the NYAS report opens with the explanation that the authors “provided original material or reviews of specific topics to Greenpeace International.” In effect, NYAS turned editing of the report over to Greenpeace, and now, Greenpeace cites NYAS as validating the scientific basis for its political agenda.

The report’s post hoc pattern-making method of analysis is widely disparaged in science. The editors say that any changes in cancer incidence must be due to the radiation from Chernobyl, because there were no other significant changes. But of course, if there were no changes, then there would be nothing to report. And, in fact, nearly everything they measured, changed. Which gave them much to report, but no basis for blaming it on radiation. Most of the variables they attributed to radiation have not be associated with radiation, and the authors offered no reason or evidence to assign them so.

Moreover, radioactivity does not have the scary properties attributed to it in the report. The report claims increases in a very wide range of symptoms, extending far beyond those previously shown to result from irradiation. In addition, it describes the effects as extending far into the future:

“Nearly 400 million human beings have been exposed to Chernobyl’s fallout and, for many generations, they and their descendants will suffer the devastating consequences…in 400 years (20 human generations) the local populations in the Chernobyl-contaminated areas can be less radiosensitive than they are today. Will individuals with reduced radioresistance agree that their progeny will be the first to be eliminated from populations?… The overwhelming majority of Chernobyl-induced genetic changes will not become apparent for several generations… Apparently, impaired immunity triggered by Chernobyl radionuclides adversely affected all of the individuals, without exception, who were subjected to any additional radiation.”

There is no credible science in the vast literature of radiation effects that would support such statements.

Status

A year ago, when the report came in, it was immediately apparent that it was not a scientific report, had numerous demonstrably false statements, and was not an appropriate report for a scientific academy. I reported this fact to Douglas Graaten, NYAS Annals Director, and recommended that he announce that conclusion and immediately withdraw the book from publication. He said he was advised by counsel that the only course legally open to the NYAS was to establish a neutral scientific body to make an independent evaluation of the report.

Presuming this would not take long, I agreed to hold off criticism of the NYAS by assuring questioners that the Academy was making a good-faith investigation of the reports’s scientific validity. He said this would take weeks, and it would not be ethical to hurry it. I sought a second opinion from Anita Fore, Director of Legal Services, the Authors Guild, and was told:

“I haven’t seen the contracts that NYAS has with the authors, but it would be unlikely that any contract would circumscribe a publisher’s First Amendment right to not be forced to publish something it doesn’t want to publish.”

After several phone checks that gave no indication of progress, I wrote Braaten:

“I keep telling people that I am confident that the NYAS will do the right thing. But that’s an increasingly difficult position to maintain. We’ve got to wrap this thing up, before much longer. The claim that this is not really an NYAS report just doesn’t wash. Why would you keep publishing a report if you didn’t think it had value?”

Braaten’s latest reply said in full:

“We are continuing our efforts to have the report evaluated. In the meantime the official position of NYAS with regard to the volume has not changed and is clearly spelled out in the statement we have posted on our website. And when a proper evaluation of the volume is prepared, it will be posted on our website.

“The volume is no longer for sale. However, we have no grounds for removing it from our website.“

Now, nearly a full year after I raised the issue, Greenpeace has announced that it is going to use this report, as expected, as the basis for its campaign timed to match the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl incident on April 26. Any hope that the whole matter will fade away has now been foreclosed by Greenpeace.

Action Requested

I want to ensure that the policy-setting bodies of the NYAS are informed and satisfied that this situation will be resolved promptly and satisfactorily.

Given some of your uninformed statements, I have to say I seriously doubt these credentials you claim from MIT. An anonymous writer can make any claim about themselves they want, but this is pretty meaningless unless their identity is known and these claims can be verified. You reveal your ignorance, for example, when you make reference to “new nukes, which burn old nuke waste and render it far less radioactive and much less long lived. They are a godsend, basically ending the problems of proliferation, safety and waste.”

I assume you are talking about fast breeder reactors, which use plutonium or thorium as fuel. However, this is an OLD idea, and these reactors have a lot of major problems apart from those of water cooled designs. The FBR project was abandoned in the US years ago, and the project in Japan has been shut down indefinitely after running years behind schedule, massive cost overruns, and being plagued by accidents and endless technical problems that still have not been resolved.

These things use liquid sodium or other liquid metals to cool them, are even more expensive than other reactor designs, and have their own set of problems and dangers (liquid sodium ignites in contact with air, for example – that’s a hell of a quality for a cooling medium!) . The only country which has currently operating commercial scale electricity producing FBR’s that I’m aware of is India. They apparently are pursuing this because they have little uranium but lots of thorium… and because they are an up and coming nuclear power. The thorium can be converted to enriched uranium in a FBR, and thus they have a source of fissile material for building more weapons. So, in fact this design does nothing to further the end of non-proliferation.

The FFTF reactor here at Hanford was fine, and was shut down for political reasons. The Chinese just fired up their first fast reactor at the end of last year. Bill Gates’ nuclear company (TerraPower) has a great design for the GenIV fast reactor as does General Atomics, so these are the future. Much safer, can’t melt-down, less waste that’s radioactive for less time. But they are still 20 years away from routine production. What’s odd is that when everyone thinks of renewables, all heads turn towards the future, assuming we’ll work out all the problems. Which we will but they’re not easy, quick or cheap. But with nuclear everyone turns backwards and thinks only of 30 years ago as though we’ve been idle. We haven’t built any new ones, but we’ve been doing the research and design waiting until we can. if we don’t, we will cede the nuclear future to China, which I really don’t feel comfortable with, for many, many reasons, not the least being the lessons of Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Yeah, that was dumb. They’re saying similar things about natural gas, so be prepared. But the GenIIIs and IVs can’t meltdown. Not that they can’t fail bu other mechanisms, but it won’t be catastrophic. This is what we’ve been working on since TMI. It’s just that we haven’t had the chance to build any.

The few Gen III’s under construction or completed have proven to be extremely expensive, and plagued with the usual problems of shoddy construction that has been so common with the Gen II’s – the analyses I’ve read do not support the assertion that they cannot melt down. The AP 1000 (which hasn’t yet been built) has a ratio of containment volume to thermal power below that of most current PWRs, increasing the risk of containment overpressure and failure in a severe accident.

The gen IVs are just paper designs that would require technological breakthroughs to develop materials capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures, fast neutron resistance, etc., etc.,etc. depending on which wild design concept is being considered. Aside from the technical problems, these would entail huge costs just to build prototypes – a key performance issue for the sodium fast breeder is cost reduction to competitive levels. If and when any of these are ever built (and it won’t be soon, given the technical problems that would need to be overcome), I predict that any of these concepts would prove to be a very bad idea on the basis of economics alone, let alone the safety and contamination risks that are virtually certain to manifest, as always. But the economic and environmental cost issues have never been a major problem for an industry that has never been weaned from from the massive public subsidies that pass much of the cost onto taxpayers and ratepayers in order to make these corporate profits possible… and of course the taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag when disaster strikes, as we have seen once again in Japan.

I’m not sure what you mean by massive subsidies. Nuclear hasn’t had much since the seventies. Ten times as much is given to renewables and oil&gas. Loan guarantees aren’t the same, but even for those renewables and oi&gas get more. see

This guy Theodore Rockwell makes a few valid points, but he clearly is acting as the point for the nuclear status quo when he makes the blanket statement, regarding the conclusions of the eastern European conclusions, that “There is no credible science in the vast literature of radiation effects that would support such statements.” Well, actually there is.

A study titled “Malformations in a Chornobyl-Impacted Region” published in 2010 in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics by Dr. Wladimir Wertelecki from the University of South Alabama gives another perspective on this evidence. His project started in 2000, conducting a 10 year study on 5 provinces of the Ukraine – measuring and monitoring all newborn babies. The descriptive epidemiological studywas done in co-operation with Ukraine health authorities.

Within 2-3 years it was obvious that the rates of spina bifida and other defects of the nervous system, were many times greater than expected, particularly in one province. A few years later an excess of conjoined twins (“Siamese twins”) was found. They found other nervous system problems, mainly microcephaly (tiny head) .. After 10 years of study they published a report showing an excess of frequency of anomalies of nervous system and of these conjoined twins.

This was found especially in the northern half of the province – an area that is a unique ecology niche – mainly wetlands. And this area also has a unique population, an ethnic group living there since recorded history. They live in small villages, very isolated, and they rely completely on local foods.

These foods are all radioactive. The soil there is such that plants absorb many times more radioactivity. People there are absorbing much higher levels of radiation. – 20 times more than there would be in soil 50 km. away.

Dr Wertelecki reminds us that there are many causes of birth abnormalities. One well recognised cause is foetal alcohol syndrome, due to alcoholism in the mother. However, the program did in fact research this question. 6 universities joined it in a very well funded and thorough study of pregnant women. It showed that in this Northern area, alcohol use among pregnant women is statistically less than in the Ukraine in general. . Alcohol does not explain the birth abnormalities. Radiation is the obvious major cause.

Dr Wertelecki’s team focused on teratogenesis – changes caused by environmental interference to a developing foetus, a foetus with with normal genes. This must be distinguished from gene mutations, inherited from parents and the two processes have different effects. The genetic, inherited defects are most likely to cause mental disability. But with the teratogenic abnormalities, the baby, if it survives, most often is of normal intelligence.

This process can begin very early, before the ovum has been implanted in the wall of the womb – before the woman knows that she is pregnant. That very early “line” of the embryo can split. In this case – the result is – twins. This split can be incomplete – resulting in conjoined twins, (“Siamese twins”). A fetiform teratoma is a sort of failed Siamese twin, a monster like mass, containing a mixture of tissues.

Abnormalities that are started at a little later stage of pregnancy include spina bifida, ( opening in lower back body wall), opening in front body wall with heart on the exterior, anencephaly (absence of head or of most of the skull and brain)

3. delayed – cancers, genetic changes. Genetic changes have long range effects – before birth and later – even into the next generation chromosomes affected – in egg or sperm – resulting in a hereditary chromosome problem.

This Ukraine province study concentrated on the second effect – teratogenesis. However, remember that in this area, there is a unique population. This isolated ethnic group stay within the area. So, here we have a third generation exposed to radiation since before their conception. This is because for some young women, say 16 years old in 1986, even if they were not pregnant, their oocytes absorbed radiation.

Later, in pregnancy, their foetus would be exposed to that radiation. Those babies, now teenagers, will in turn, have their babies exposed to the radiation affected chromosomes.

So here, this particular population is indeed a test case for that third, delayed, effect. This brings in the question of gene mutations and chromosomes – the unpredictable subject of genomic instability. It is not surprising that politicians, and people in general, do not understand genomic instability. Scientists do not understand it, and what it means for future populations.

There’s a mountain of peer reviewed science that shows you do not have a clue what you are talking about. It’s a common trait amongst the nuke fan club – science denial and illiteracy.

European Environment Agency peer-reviewed report. Fukushima disaster in 2011 may have released twice as much radiation as the Japanese government admitted. Chernobyl disaster deaths could range from “at least 17,000 to 68,000 over 50 years”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/23/europe-failed-learn-environmental-lessons